


Gunshot

by Residesatshamecentral



Category: SS-GB (TV)
Genre: Action, And Also Bleeding, Archer is guilt ridden, Berlin!AU, Brooding, Espionage, Huth has issues, Implied Love, description of violence, gunfight, minor character injury, promising female character killed off in seconds, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-11-06 22:36:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11045751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Residesatshamecentral/pseuds/Residesatshamecentral
Summary: Archer gets a minor injury. Huth conceals his hysteria. Badly.





	Gunshot

The moon was half-hidden by scudding cloud. Crouching in the shadow of the fuel tank, Archer tried not to fidget, his hand returning again and again to his gun. The worst thing about missions like this, he thought, was the interminable tension of waiting in silence, uncertain how the rest of the plan was going. He had not heard from Huth since their last, tense call at the nearest phone box, a whispered message that he had tracked the mole to this location. “Stay there” had been the terse response “do nothing until I arrive with backup.” A click and the line went dead. Since then, nothing but solitary waiting, a shadow with a gun on the black airfield.

Twenty metres away, the quarry were grouping, men with torches gathering around a stolen army helicopter. There were fewer than thirty of them. Ten of them, he knew, had either defected or tried to and gone underground from the Army and the SS. Two were politicians. The rest were particularly determined members of the ragtag and dangerous resistance centred in Berlin. Tonight, the false message he had contrived to send had brought these people into one place, anxious and fearing exposure. He had commandeered a car to track his suspect here. Archer wondered which of the worried figures gesticulating in the torchlight was the mole. Not, he realised, that it would matter very much soon. An ambush like this was going to provoke a firefight. Soon, every man and woman he had lured to this place would either be dead, or in the soft and merciful hands of the SD.

Pulling his coat around him, Archer stealthily moved away from the fuel tank and toward the shelter of the nearest wall. He had chosen to be the villain to these people, certainly. He did not know the faces of the men and women debating the ways and means of escape, except a few photographs from the files, but he felt as though he knew them intimately. The whispering clandestine meetings, the rough democracy, networks and nervous alliances, the spies and slogans and hand signals had become a currency and a world he was intimately familiar with and utterly apart from. He understood the fears, the hopes, the integrities and the defiance of his quarry, like a man looking through a two-way mirror, privy to their dreams and unobserved. He wondered if they would ever know his name.

He could have been one of them. If things –

“SURRENDER YOUR WEAPONS!” Huth’s voice roared from a microphone somewhere out of sight, startling Archer out of his tense reverie. The effect on the rebels was electric. Shouts echoed through the concrete space as floodlights blazed on, turning the scene into a stage set, the dissidents with their helicopter suddenly becoming scattered ants, tiny and vulnerable beneath the hostile sky.

The rebels were the first to shoot. The army men brandished weapons, rushing forward in the half-crouch of startled soldiers as the SS men moved in. Gunfire echoed as the helicopter started up, almost drowning the sounds of the firefight. The politicians were making their bid for escape. Huth shouted an order to take out the helicopter, but the heavy machine was already off the ground, a panicky rebel clinging to its underside, then dropping with a cry of despair.

A sharp scream nearby caught his attention. A woman who had broken away from the group was struggling with an SS man, his gun lying feet away. The woman was breathing raggedly, her thigh a bloody mess, but she caught the officer across the face with a roundhouse punch, then buried her teeth in his throat like a wolf. Archer ran forward, pull his gun out. His thoughts were confused. Should he shoot her? Threaten her? The woman raised her head and met his eye, brown hair straggling over a set, frightened face.

Then the world was effaced by a thunder of red and gold and Archer found himself of the ground, ears ringing. It took several seconds to realise there had been an explosion.

He could hear nothing. Blearily, he raised himself onto his knees, the world now flickering with the light of the burnt-out skeleton of the shattered helicopter.

To see the woman.

To see the gun she was holding.

Half-lying, half-dragging herself along, she had reached the pistol the SS man had dropped. He lay between them, his neck twisted at an impossible angle. Wordless and frightened, she aimed it at Archer and fired. The pain was immediate and sharp, piercing his shoulder. He flung himself flat, tensed for another shot as shouts rose around them. The world was recovering from shock. A gunshot rang out metres away. Archer struggled to find his gun as a hard hand suddenly closed around his uninjured shoulder.

“Archer!”

He found himself wrenched from the ground. Huths face was furious, contorted. He wrestled with Archer. It took several moments for Archer to realise that he was not being searched or manhandled. Huth was pulling at his clothing, trying to examine the wound to his shoulder.  Blood ran down his tunic in bright streams. “The woman sir -” he tried to point, glad to find that he could move his arm without trouble.

“Dead!” snapped Huth “My god Archer are you _alright_?! Why didn’t you stay where you were you bloody idiot? PULL OUT” he roared over his shoulder. At close quarters it was parade-ground deafening. “TAKE THE PRISONERS AND PULL OUT. UNIT TWO, SECURE THE AREA.” Nodding tersely to Hausser, Huth pulled Archer with him like an oversized rag doll, apparently oblivious to the fact that he could use his feet. Archer had the distinct feeling that if they had not been in full view of the squad, Huth might have tried to carry him like a bride to the nearest medic. Desperately trying to erase that image from his mind forever, he tried to reason with the man whose contorted face was clearly trying to conceal desperate anxiety. “Sir, the wound is really shallow, I can feel it. It went over the bone. There is a lot of blood but it is much less serious…”

“Shut UP” snapped Huth. His quick strides had carried Archer bodily to the nearest medic, Who stood quiet and expressionless beside his field ambulance. He quickly got to work on Archer.

The dead and the walking wounded were carried past them, heads lolling or jerking upward in pain. Huth remained by him, jaw clenched tight, long after the medic had pronounced the gunshot a flesh wound. After verifying that the bullet had passed through, Archer was patched up, sat down and told to keep out of the way.

Huth stood over him, silent, and they shared the silence. The air was electric and still. It was almost morning.  


End file.
